


flip me over one more time

by woahpip



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Foggy Nelson mention, Hurt/Comfort, Vignettes, high T for language, mini fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28416171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woahpip/pseuds/woahpip
Summary: “I want to feel authentic, Foggy. Christmas is fake once you grow up.”*Frank comes back, and Karen thinks about letting him in.
Relationships: Frank Castle/Karen Page
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40
Collections: kastlechristmas2k20





	flip me over one more time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CharmingProcrastinator](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharmingProcrastinator/gifts).



> written for Kastle Secret Santa 2020! <3 here's my take on a little "meetcute" fix-it post Punisher s2.

Mulled wine doesn’t hit as good as whiskey straight, but Karen Page has been trying to get more into the holiday spirit.

“I want to feel authentic, Foggy. Christmas is fake once you grow up.”

Foggy’s answering whine crackled through her cell phone. He was on a trip with Marcie, at some ski resort where rich lawyers went to laze away.

“Good thing you aren’t here, everything is fake. Don’t tell Marcie, she loves it, she’s good at it. She can actually ski.”

“Can you not?”

He laughed hard. “Absolutely not. I’ve been sipping expensive cocktails at the bar, way too sweet, and reading case studies. It’s the life.”

They stayed silent for a minute. Just when Karen was about to tell him goodbye, he spoke up.

“I’m sorry I won’t be around at Christmas.”

“It’s ok. Really. What’s more authentic than me watching a New York Christmas right outside my window.”

“You shouldn’t be…” He stopped mid sentence and then decided to say something else. “I don’t want to lecture you. Talk to you soon.”

“Talk soon,” Karen said. She hung up before she could ask him to finish his original thought.

She already knew she was alone; she didn’t want to hear him say it bothered him too.

*  
The ever-present weight on her chest grows when she gets off the phone. Anxiety twists in her throat. It coats her teeth. She decides to do what she always does when it’s so thick she can carve out a piece and taste it.

She walks to the graveyard, looking over her shoulder every few steps. A gun in her purse, pocketknife at her waist and tennis shoes she can run in didn’t stop the feeling of fear in her. It made its home in her bones, her brain.

Matt Murdock donning a mask didn’t make her feel better; she knew how he felt about saving her. He had been around less, but he was staying around the city this time of year.

Days like today, she fought away thoughts about who’s presence could make her feel better. 

She saved herself a thousand times over but it was never enough. Her chest ached with something else, a yearning she tried to laugh off as juvenile, child-like. Grown women shouldn’t want that much, shouldn’t love that much.

He pushed her away and she kept hoping he’d come back.

*

Frank Castle’s grave was as she left it. The last bouquet she brought, cheap multicolored daisies almost dead, on-sale at the corner flower cart, sat propped next to his name. She’d pressed a single bloom on Maria, Lisa, and Frank Jr.’s gravestones, said a jumbled prayer over them. She had kneeled at Frank’s and forgot time until her knees grew bloody.

It was sad, how much she came to their graves. A family that she never knew.

A man that was never hers. 

She mourned them anyway, lumped in with her memories of Kevin and her mother. She could never go home again, so this had to be enough.

Karen was so lost in thought she didn’t notice the shadow behind her until it coughs.

The knife is easiest to grab first; she turns around and wrenches it open at the same time, whirling to meet the stranger.

Looks what happen when you don’t give in to your paranoia her frightened brain reminded her. We will need extra vigilance to keep surviving.

If we survive. She hadn’t realized the shadow person was talking until he was halfway through her name.

“-ren. Karen?”

It takes a moment to let herself remember. “What…what the fuck are you doing here?” she panted out, finding it hard to catch her breath between being scared for her life and so goddamn surprised that Frank Castle was in front her, pristine looking, without a scratch. His hair was longer, just shy of the hipster look she’d seen before, his beard cut closer this time.

“I didn’t mean to scare you.” He hadn’t stopped looking at her eyes. His were wide, lips left parted. “I just got back to town. This is the first place I needed to visit.”

Her mind whirred, trying to make a follow up. Before she could he laughed, short and clipped. He looked away from her and over at his family’s graves. He took a deep breath before speaking again.

“You were the second.”

*

She let him into her apartment, because of course she did. 

Her hands shook as she set up the coffee machine. Water dribbled onto the counter from where she had to correct her pour into the reservoir. A few errant coffee grounds, also spilt from being added, floated around.

Frank leaned against her bar counter, looking her over. His gaze was soft like she’d seen so many times before. Like it was before he left.

“Where you headed?” she asked.

“I’m thinking of staying in town for a while.”

Karen busied herself with pouring his coffee, not knowing how to answer. She added a spoonful of sugar into her own cup, watched her reflection as she stirred.

“You told me to leave you. It was final sounding. Not just leave you alone to do whatever you had to do but forget you forever.”

“Yeah.”

“And then you show back up and act like nothing is wrong. You already did that once, remember? What do you need from me this time?”

Chin raised, steely gaze trained at his face: she hoped he saw the hurt.

He turned and she thought he was just going to leave in the middle of the fight, because he realized he was right the first time. But he just sat on her couch, stared at the ceiling a moment before looking back at her.

“You fucking scare me Page. When you find something you want you grab on so fucking tight no matter what’s happening, no matter the consequences. No matter how bad it could be for you.”

“Frank, you taught me that.”

She sat down on her coffee table across from him. Their knees touched. The gray glow of a setting winter sun set shadows around his face: the hollows below his eyes, his chin, his ever-broken bent of his nose. The shadows looked like bruises; here she was staring into the eyes of a ghost. A dead man, somehow alive.

“You’ll have to prove that you want me around,” she said. She grabbed his hands between hers. She ignored her brain saying stupid girl.

She was a grown woman who could make her own bad decisions.

“I can’t promise you I’ll never leave.” Before she screams her frustration he starts again. “I’ll tell when you I have to go. And there are places…places I want you to see. Places I want you to see with me.”

They sit for a while after that and don’t speak.

*

“Can’t cook Karen. My contribution to family meals has always been drinks.”

Foggy’s voice crackled through her phone. She used her shoulder to hold it against her face while she chopped garlic. It had been a few days since Frank came back to Hell’s Kitchen

“I know, but still thought I’d ask. I don’t usually cook either so I’m nervous.”

“Why would you be nervous? You’re just gonna give leftovers to the neighbor who slowly folds her panties in the laundry room. Right?”

He caught her lie but it didn’t bother her. She decided to fall right back into her old ways, with a few caveats.

“I am lying, but will have to tell you about him later.”

“You have a man over…”

“Yes.”

“A man that needs to be lied about.”

“Yes.”

“Do I know him.”

“Maybe.”

Foggy sat quiet and Karen smiled despite herself. She knew that he knew. 

“You’re predictable in the weirdest ways. I’m not going to lecture you.” He said it again, like it was a mantra he had to remind himself over and over. “Worse fucking things happen in that town anyway.”

“Very true.”

*

The brunch she scrounged together as their Christmas Eve meal was halfway finished when Frank showed up, texting her to buzz him in the building. She had eggs and bacon, the teeniest bit of milk, half a loaf of fresh bread from a neighbor, and plenty of coffee.

She didn’t think he’d mind.

He showed up to her door with a six pack of beer and a newspaper wrapped box.

“Are we exchanging presents?” she asked him.

Karen was mentally going through what she could gift him, thinking mainly of the brand new first aid kit stashed in her bathroom cabinet. Another part of her thought that he owed her something, and she owed him nothing.

“Just a little something.”

He popped open two beers and leaned against her island counter, watching her carefully tear the paper. It ended up being a shoebox. She opened the lid and found a pair of plain black slipper boots, with fake fur around the ankle. 

“To replace the shoes I owe you,” he said. He bit back a smile, taking a swig of his beer to erase any laughter that could have bubbled up.

The look on her face was what-the-fuck-dumbfounded-goddamn-it’s-funny-now-that-we’re-alive.

“It’s a start,” she eventually answered him.

He nodded in agreement. “It’s a start.”

Frank took his pocketknife out and cut the tags off for her. She slipped her feel into the slippers, curled her toes into the fabric. They were very warm, and something she’d use. The perfect gift in her opinion.

With one final turn, the fried potatoes she had cooking were finished.

“You ready to eat and talk about how…how we’re gonna do all this.”

“Been ready for a while now,” he said. Before getting food he stopped in front of her for a moment, then leaned forward and gently kissed her forehead.

Karen let out a breath. They were doing this. She had never let him go and he was reaching back for her. She’d give him the chance. He’s the one who taught her how to hold on.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from Am I Breaking Down by dead man winter. Also listen to Careful I Think It's Loaded-- a Kastle song to me for sure.
> 
> thank you for reading! <3
> 
> (you see any glaring errors? let me know!)


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